How can a political party in america get away with the unthinkable proposition of withholding funding for american troops in the field, or in return for said funding, try to cut a deal to increase spending in other areas against the presidient's wishes, when the federal government is already running a deficit, owes a huge federal debt, and Congress appears to be fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax this year by not offsetting the lost tax revenue ? How can that same political party then have the gall to complain about the federal deficit, call themselves fiscally responsible, or utter the phrase 'we support the troops' ?

Answer - Call yourselves DEMOCRATS. In the world of Democrats, there is no such thing as responsibility. You just let your pet media cover up for you. Try to find an honest MSM story about this.

The Democrats are attempting to blackmail Bush and Republicans into 'buying' Democratic support for troop funding by going along with $30 billion in additional spending on the Omnibus bill, which includes 11,932 earmarks. Bush has threatened to veto the inflated bill, and Democrats know they don't have the votes to override a presidential veto if the Republicans stand united against them. Democrats are upset that Republicans won't "compromise" (translation: accept the Democrats terms of blackmail). If Bush and the Republicans do cave to the Dems, guess who the Dems will hold responsible for the larger resulting federal deficit next year ? If you said 'Bush !', you win a cigar. See how that works ? Cute, isn't it ? Democrats would get to behave irresponsibly and blame Bush all at the same time. It's a win-win, except for the taxpayers, of course, who don't matter anyway.

Speaking of those 11,932 earmarks, what happened to all that talk about "draining the swamp" of pork that the incoming Democratic congress was going to address ? I guess we should throw that on the rising scrap pile of broken Democratic 2006 campaign promises, just like PAYGO was scuttled in the Senate last week. You won't hear much about that from the MSM either.

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increase in federal spending. In a truly unfortunate choice of words, Obey said this about the impasse:

I'm tired of debating table scraps, and it's clear to me that the White House does not intend to compromise; they intend to sit back like Buddha and keep expecting us to compromise with ourselves. I'm done with navel-gazing," Obey said. "I'm not going to sit here and enable them to chisel domestic money down, down, down, down, so you wind up getting $5 billion bucks in return for $50 [billion] or $90 [billion] or whatever the hell it is they want for the war."

Table scraps ? $30 billion is table scraps ? Not to me, Mr. Obey. Remember last week, when Bill Clinton was talking about how he resented not being asked to sacrifice for the war effort ? Well, now you are seeing what Democrats do when asked to sacrifice a little for the war effort. The only possible thing Democrats consider as 'sacrifice' is huge tax increases. Those they are fine with. Reigning in spending in anathema to Democrats. When they are asked to do any belt tightening, Democrats respond like this, as Harry Reid's spokesman Jim Manley did when talking about the current Omibus bill impasse:

"When Americans wonder why there are fewer police on their street, fewer agents on our borders and fewer teachers in their children's classrooms, the answer will be painfully clear: The president and Bush Republicans are unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate in good faith".

This is why holding spending down is so difficult. Anytime it is attempted, Democrats act like you are slapping the food out of people's hands. Btw, without the $30 billion increase (or the $11 billion increase under the compromise plan), funding would continue at CURRENT LEVELS. This wouldn't require police or teachers to be fired, and Tiny Tim wouldn't have to give up his crutches either.

My message to Republicans is - Please, for once, have some nerve and stick to your principles. Abandoning them is what got you into trouble in the first place. You will NEVER be successful trying to pander like the Democrats, so why try.